Colette Maze was a French pianist whose recording career began in her 80s and continued throughout her life, with her most recent album released just this year.
- Died: November 19, 2023 (Who else died on November 19?)
- Details of death: Died at her home in Paris at the age of 109.
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Colette Maze’s legacy
Maze grew up down the street from the celebrated composer Claude Debussy, and she loved his music all her life. She eventually focused on it in her recording career, but many decades passed between the little girl developing her love for music and the pianist who became a viral sensation in her 100s.
Her parents denied her the opportunity to put in the hours of practice needed to pursue a career in performance, so Maze studied as a music teacher instead, working with her first students in the 1930s. As World War II raged and the Nazis occupied Europe, she and a friend escaped to the south of France on bicycles, riding out the war there. After the war, she continued her career as a piano teacher for decades until her retirement at the age of 70. Even after her retirement, she continued to play the piano regularly, and eventually, her son encouraged her to pursue her long-deferred performance career and begin recording.
Maze’s first album, a collection of preludes from her longtime favorite, Debussy, was released in 2004, just before she turned 90. She went on to release six other albums, often focusing on Debussy but also recording the work of other composers such as Erik Satie and George Gershwin. Her most recent recording, “109 Years of Piano,” was released in 2023. In 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Maze established a Facebook profile, where she gained thousands of fans as she shared videos of her playing and photos of her life and work.
Notable quote
“I always preferred composers who gave me tenderness. Like [Robert] Schumann and [Claude] Debussy. Music is an affective language, a poetic language. In music there is everything — nature, emotion, love, revolt, dreams; it’s like a spiritual food.” —from a 2021 interview on NPR’s Morning Edition
Tributes to Colette Maze
Full obituary: The New York Times
